A fellow today told me he thinks people have two levels of consciousness. That is maybe many more. But he wanted to discuss just two.
The lower level, where his job determines who he is. Then the higher level which is more concerned with the meaning of life.
I tied that into Allen Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind in his treatment of the Self.
That is before the Enlightenment people's self identity was religious identity.
The Enlightenment was meant to knock the Kings and Priests off their thrones. Political power was taken from Kings and religious power from priests. Religious identity became obsolete. Now the self depends no longer on one's religious identity. Ask Freud and he will tell you the self is sex. Ask Nietzsche and he will say it is the will to power. Ask Locke he will say it is ones means of making a living. And this by default is the self identity of the Western man.
But the whole thesis of Allen Bloom is the Enlightenment has run into a dead end. And he certainly has no solution of even a half baked attempt at a solution.
I myself have had a kind of development when it comes to personal identity. I felt at 11 years old I had a choice of what kind of character I wanted to be. Later at two great yeshivas in NY my self identity became tied to the idea of learning Torah. [One yeshiva was Shar Yashuv and the other was the Mir in NY.] To a large degree this self identity for me has stayed stable. But I admit this self identity for me has had its ups and downs. I am no Rosh Yeshiva and I also have seen enough things in the world of Litvak yeshivas to cause me some doubt about how effective learning Torah is to make people into better people. However despite that I still try to stick with Torah as best I can/
The fellow I was talking with had also been wondering what makes some of the creepy religious teachers the way they are? Do they just wake up one morning and look in the mirror and say, "I am the messiah?" Or something along those lines?
I have already dealt with that issue a long time ago. I studied many cults and I got an idea of the basic pattern. But I also tie it in to the fact that they use the Torah to make their money. That is what they do for a living. That is the one and only thing the Torah says you can't use to make money with. There is something about that sin that makes them insane.
The basic problem of cults fits in nicely with the Kant School.
So I have an easy explanation of cults and cult leaders. The archetype. At some point they lose their own identity and become absorbed in some Archetype.
The lower level, where his job determines who he is. Then the higher level which is more concerned with the meaning of life.
I tied that into Allen Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind in his treatment of the Self.
That is before the Enlightenment people's self identity was religious identity.
The Enlightenment was meant to knock the Kings and Priests off their thrones. Political power was taken from Kings and religious power from priests. Religious identity became obsolete. Now the self depends no longer on one's religious identity. Ask Freud and he will tell you the self is sex. Ask Nietzsche and he will say it is the will to power. Ask Locke he will say it is ones means of making a living. And this by default is the self identity of the Western man.
But the whole thesis of Allen Bloom is the Enlightenment has run into a dead end. And he certainly has no solution of even a half baked attempt at a solution.
I myself have had a kind of development when it comes to personal identity. I felt at 11 years old I had a choice of what kind of character I wanted to be. Later at two great yeshivas in NY my self identity became tied to the idea of learning Torah. [One yeshiva was Shar Yashuv and the other was the Mir in NY.] To a large degree this self identity for me has stayed stable. But I admit this self identity for me has had its ups and downs. I am no Rosh Yeshiva and I also have seen enough things in the world of Litvak yeshivas to cause me some doubt about how effective learning Torah is to make people into better people. However despite that I still try to stick with Torah as best I can/
The fellow I was talking with had also been wondering what makes some of the creepy religious teachers the way they are? Do they just wake up one morning and look in the mirror and say, "I am the messiah?" Or something along those lines?
I have already dealt with that issue a long time ago. I studied many cults and I got an idea of the basic pattern. But I also tie it in to the fact that they use the Torah to make their money. That is what they do for a living. That is the one and only thing the Torah says you can't use to make money with. There is something about that sin that makes them insane.
The basic problem of cults fits in nicely with the Kant School.
So I have an easy explanation of cults and cult leaders. The archetype. At some point they lose their own identity and become absorbed in some Archetype.
